


Moulding to the Pitcher

by firefly124



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-08
Updated: 2011-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefly124/pseuds/firefly124
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The chance to serve a Celestial had seemed a blessing to Gong Su, one normally reserved for those who served the imperial family. And it was, but frequently not in the ways he had imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moulding to the Pitcher

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [bubonicwoodchuk](http://bubonicwoodchuk.livejournal.com) in the 2008 Temeraire Ficathon. Thanks to [sahiya](http://sahiya.livejournal.com) for brainstorming and beta-reading.

  
_“The wise adapt themselves to circumstances,  
as water moulds itself to the pitcher.”  
\-- Chinese proverb_   


 

It took both Lung Tien Xiang and the dragonet’s captain to explain to her that she must release her prize that it could be prepared properly for her, but at last she did. Of course, she must be half mad with hunger, considering how little she had been given at her hatching. Gong Su quickly slit the cow open and removed the heart and liver.

Guanyin was merciful, putting them in the path of this much-needed sustenance for both Lung Tien and the young one. He wondered when he might have the chance to offer her incense in gratitude for this and the many other occasions of fortune they had encountered. If the opportunity did not come soon, there would be many, many joss sticks to burn indeed.

As to the first meal, how should it be done with her type of dragon? Had she been a Celestial, her first meal would have been served on a platter of gold. Surely there were similar traditions in her land for fire-breathers, whose gift was only slightly less fearsome than the Divine Wind. Here, however, he had no tray of any kind and offered the organs to her from his hands, only hoping she would leave them attached as she took her first meal.

“Best first meal, for little dragons to get big,” he said. They were not the words that should be spoken, but she did not know his language, and this was the best he could manage in English.

“Oh, is it?” She grabbed them and ate them swiftly.

His hands thankfully still his own, Su quickly butchered the rest of her cow as well as Lung Tien’s, storing away the meat in various pots to be prepared later, save the one leg joint the dragonet had eaten as he worked. Lung Tien, he noted, forbore to do so, though he must be hungry as well. It seemed he was willing to wait for his food to be cooked properly for him.

“Excuse me,” the Celestial’s voice intoned in the familiar words of home.

Su looked up to meet Lung Tien’s eyes. He thought at once of their desperate flight earlier, during which he had tried valiantly not to cough the remaining soot out of his lungs, lest it land on the Celestial’s hide. True, it would have been a small thing after sleeping in mud warmed only by hot pepper and being splattered with the bits of shell from the hatching of the fire-breather. And yet it offended Su’s sense of decency that he should risk such a thing, though his lungs had been rather more offended by the soot itself. Now he felt that surely an apology was required, but past experience suggested Lung Tien would be either amused or affronted by an attempt to offer one.

“I know there is not time now,” Lung Tien continued, “but when we find a place, do you think you could use that sesame oil for my cow? I know there are no onions or vegetables, but I think it would be very tasty anyway.”

Su nodded vigorously. “Of course. And if there are any where we land, you shall have them as well.”

Lung Tien seemed to consider this for a moment before saying, “Then I hope we shall find a place that has both safety and onions.”

As he secured his pots and person for the next stage of their flight, Gong Su could not help smiling to himself. Yes. There would be many, many sticks to light.


End file.
